Category Archives: Baseball

06.22.11
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Howard Bryant strikes again

Much thanks to Howard Bryant for continuing to publicize the A’s plight. Now he has included Victory Court and the Rays in the situation, pointing the finger at the commissioner and the owners for their collective indecisiveness and greed, respectively. He sums up the state of affairs between Oakland and Lew Wolff this way:

A’s fans will nod, too. Despite Wolff’s protestations that he is not purposely burying his club, the A’s appear to be following the Montreal narrative. Wolff is correct that Oakland has lacked the political leadership to give him optimism — with the brief exception of city manager Robert Bobb. No mayor, from Elihu Harris to Jerry Brown to Ron Dellums to Jean Quan, has used significant muscle to make the A’s a priority.

Wolff has no reason to trust Oakland politicians, not after the city and Alameda County leadership all but ruined the fan experience at the Oakland Coliseum to accommodate the disastrous return of the Oakland Raiders.

But there is another truth Wolff must face: Oakland doesn’t have much reason to trust him, either. Since Walter Haas sold the team in 1995, A’s owners have done everything in their power to leave Oakland, physically and emotionally.

The commissioner’s office, too, is complicit in the sabotaging of Oakland. Bud Selig rightfully lauds his three-person committee assigned to the daunting and thankless task of assessing the feasibility of baseball in the San Francisco Bay Area. But although he interprets the length of time the committee has taken to reach a finding — two years and counting since March 2009 — as evidence of its diligence, Selig is selling a false timetable, for he has actually had the A’s-San Jose relocation question on his desk for 14 years.

Bryant finishes his column by citing the possibility that Wolff could own the Dodgers and a fresh ownership group could come in to hammer out a deal with Oakland. If that doesn’t work out, the stage is set for the A’s to leave the Bay Area completely. That’s what scares me. Because Oakland doesn’t have a great track record of doing things like this well or properly, or as I’ve noted previously, alone. Unless there’s a Coliseum deal (which MLB has already discounted), Oakland isn’t getting help from the county or state. I want to believe that Oakland can pull it off. But if the scenario Bryant describes happens with the A’s being “Oakland or bust”, people (including the owners) are generally not going to lay money on Oakland. We are talking about $400 million for the team and $450+ million in private financing for a ballpark, plus $100 million directly from the city to get the site and infrastructure ready. If it is Oakland only, I’ll get behind it 100% – as should most readers here and anyone else who is for keeping the A’s in the Bay Area.

From a practical standpoint, A’s fans need to have as many options for the A’s ballpark location as possible, especially with the coming demise of redevelopment (which East Coast-based Bryant hasn’t mentioned in his columns). If we are stuck with only one option, heaven help us.

P.S. – One thing to look for in the upcoming CBA – franchise relocation fees. They aren’t in there right now, and with two teams possibly coming into play, could allow the owners to get their greed on once again.

06.20.11
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More Cisco field renders from Bryant column

Buried within Howard Bryant’s excellent ESPN.com column on Friday was a photo gallery. I skimmed through it but didn’t notice the four three new renders (thanks Different James for pointing this out). Without further ado, here are the new renders – and commence the “colonnade” discussion.

Easily the best pic of the colonnade (minisuites) we've seen yet. Notice the bullpens on the left and how the seating decks meet the colonnade.

High up above CF, sort of like the front row of the upper deck of Mt. Davis but better.

Aerial shot includes surrounding buildings, including one that has already been demolished.

View from LF corner party suites toward downtown San Jose. I'm sure the placement of these suites is not a coincidence. Not shown: Planes flying in barely above Adobe HQ. Also: This image was part of the August 2010 release.

It’s really amazing how much the San Jose version of Cisco Field is unlike the Fremont version. The only element that has carried over is the roof. Also, I don’t know if these renderings have really gotten across how compact the place is. Sure, it’s easy to divine that from a 32-36,000 capacity. It’s much harder to get the feel, though. Sometimes I walk by the site and I wonder how they can fit it in there, despite the amount of time I’ve spent looking at it. Yet there it is.

06.19.11
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Sorry Harold Camping, armageddon is actually in 2014

I’m amused reading Ray Ratto’s Twitter feed this morning. He’s fielding questions about the A’s stadium situation, perhaps in response to Chronicle Sports Editor Al Saracevic’s column on the front page of the Sporting Green today (paper/iPad app only until Tuesday). Ratto’s staying consistent in his belief that the Wolff/Fisher group doesn’t have the money to build in San Jose, making it the only reason the move hasn’t happened. As far as I can tell he’s the only media guy who has this particular opinion, though that shouldn’t discount it. It’s simply one of many takes on the subject.

Saracevic laments the possible loss of all three teams currently playing at the Coliseum. The A’s would leave for San Jose or Las Vegas (we’ve gone over that). The Raiders would be lured south to Los Angeles again, whereas the Warriors would head back over the bridge to San Francisco. The 49ers deal in Santa Clara will fall apart, forcing the team to work with SF again. The column is mostly prognostication without much depth, so like any opinion (including mine), take it with a grain of salt.

Howard Bryant mistakenly claimed that the A’s lease runs out after the 2012. In actuality, they could leave after the 2012 if they had a place to play. Since they won’t, they’ll be playing at the Coliseum through their last extension year, 2013. The Raiders’ lease also ends following the 2013 season. What happens in 2014? Jeffrey, Doug Boxer, and I puzzled over that question a few weeks ago. It’s been brought up in the comments with greater frequency recently.

With multiple tenants comes moving parts for stadium deals. When the Raiders sat down with the Coliseum Authority and hammered out their new stadium plan, the assumption was that the A’s would leave after the 2013 season for either downtown Oakland or San Jose. We’re now at the point were no permanent new home could be opened until 2015 at the earliest in either city due to the political process.

Oakland has 50% power in the Coliseum Authority relationship, and other than rejecting Lew Wolff’s most recent request for a lease extension, the city tends to rubber-stamp whatever the Authority does. By supporting what will probably be a $1 billion stadium at the Coliseum complex (plus carried over debt from the old Coliseum), nearly half a billion for Victory Court, and silently pushing for a new Oakland-friendly owner to take over should Wolff/Fisher give up the San Jose project completely due to frustration, they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. Honestly, who could blame them? No private interests have ever invested a combined $2 billion in Oakland in this manner.

The harsh reality is Oakland will be fortunate to get $500 million in these economic times. (So would San Jose.) Both the A’s and Raiders projects will require varying amounts of redevelopment money, which as I’ve written several times, is near extinction. These projects have become much riskier and harder to pull off than ever before. It might be best if Oakland were to focus on one project it can really do well, instead of two in which having fewer resources available for both makes it more likely to half-ass both. The Raiders have a leg up in that the Coliseum Authority has its own ability to raise bonds, and with a few changes to the city charter could be given redevelopment powers over the complex. That isn’t possible at Victory Court, since Oakland is carrying the burden alone. Eventually, Oakland and the Authority are gonna have to make a decision about who to extend, whether for one year or several. Given their track record, it looks more likely that someone or something will make the decision for them.

As for the A’s, 2014 is a particularly dicey situation. Other than AT&T Park, there is no MLB-ready facility in the Bay Area if the Coli were taken away (natch). I went to a San Jose Giants game last week and tried to envision it with 10,000 extra seats so that it could host some MLB games. It didn’t work. I suppose Wolff could build a temporary facility alongside the Quakes stadium at Airport West and move some of the materials over when the time comes, but it seems like a logistical nightmare. If Bud Selig can’t convince the Coliseum Authority to re-up with the A’s for one year, we may see the A’s in some kind of yearlong barnstorming tour, a la the 2004 Expos.

06.17.11
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Howard Bryant reviews “high stakes game of chicken”

This one’s a must read, people.

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Howard Bryant may be a Boston guy through and through, but he cut his teeth at the Merc’s sports department for years as the A’s beat writer. He’s also written some excellent books on baseball: Juicing the Game, Shut Out, and his most recent work, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron. Now he’s taken some time to write about the future of the A’s, and it’s fairly comprehensive (though he gets the last lease year wrong – it’s 2013, and he confuses Coliseum North with Uptown).

There’s too much meat in the column to cherry pick any one passage, so I’ll leave it up to you to read the whole thing. Then come back here to comment. As Bill King often said of the occasional high scoring game, “this one has become a donnybrook.”

06.17.11
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Sometimes a tree has to be chopped down

Nearly thirty years ago I went on a field trip with my brother and dad to a nursery in the Santa Cruz mountains. The nursery mostly grew coast redwoods. The afternoon was chilly as the marine layer wafted in over the mountains, giving the trees the moist, dense air that makes them thrive. As we left, my brother and I were both given redwood saplings in half-gallon milk cartons. We decided to plant them in the planter strip near the curb in front of the house. I forgot which brother was responsible for which tree.

Ten years later both trees had grown, though not taller than the other trees on the block. The western tree was taller than the eastern tree and had a thicker trunk. They required no maintenance. My dad laid down iceplant (just like at the old Coliseum!) around the trees and everything coexisted peacefully.

Another ten years passed, and from all appearances the western tree was growing like crazy, whereas the eastern tree was stalling out. The western tree also had much more substantial root growth, which could be identified by the uprooted sidewalk next to the tree. Its brother to the east posed no threat to strollers and skateboarders. Eventually the city noticed the problem with the sidewalk and told us that we had no business planting those trees next to the curb. We were told to put a tree in the yard next time, where it could have more space to grow. One day the city chopped down the western tree, which had grown to 20 feet tall. Later they pulled out the stump and fixed the sidewalk. The eastern tree still stands, growing little by little (I think). My dad calls it the Christmas tree and runs the holiday lights out to the former sapling every December. It remains the only redwood on the block.

San Jose’s redevelopment agency is much like the western tree. It grew as a mighty redwood was supposed to, big and tall and fast. Over time it became too big for its own good, and to keep it from destroying the street it had to be chopped down. SJRA’s mission was informed by a quest to become a big city, which meant putting tons of resources into it. Some of it was well directed (library, convention center, arena, museums) and some of it wasn’t (numerous retail failures). SJRA has a ton of fundamental problems that make it difficult to easily chop down. Yet that’s exactly what it’s done. In preparation for the upcoming fiscal year 109 jobs were slashed, or 91% of staff. Even as they expressed outrage at the passage of the twin “kill” bills, they clearly saw what was coming down the road and prepared for it.

Over the next year it’s expected that many RDA’s will be chopped down like the western tree. Most of those will be agencies that have grown too big or have become unmanageable. The loose definitions of blight and even the term “redevelopment” have allowed the agencies to grow unchecked. Controller John Chiang’s audit covered numerous instances of waste and abuse. Agencies who have mismanaged themselves are likely to get cut down, while the properly managed ones – and they do exist – have a chance to stay alive, like the eastern tree. What we don’t know is the criteria for separating the good ones from the bad ones.

With the first real salvo fired in the redevelopment war on Wednesday, every agency throughout the state is scrambling to protect or save themselves from the coming onslaught.

If you’ve read this far, you now get a treat of ballpark news! The Merc’s Tracy Seipel checked in with both Lew Wolff and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed to catch their responses to the redevelopment shuffle. Wolff appears undeterred, still saying he can buy land if necessary, though he hasn’t actually done it. Maybe he’s waiting to find out what he might have to buy once the dust settles. Reed provided three scenarios under which the Diridon land can be made whole:

  • Wolff could buy the two parcels, and the city could sell him the rest of the ballpark site.
  • The city could sell agency assets to buy the last two parcels, then sell the entire site to Wolff.
  • The city could buy the last two parcels and lease the site to Wolff, with the city using the lease as security for financing to pay for the land.

These are all scenarios we’ve discussed here on the blog. None of what San Jose has done has been sexy or attention-grabbing. I’ve noted in the past that I could often count all of the people present at a ballpark-related session on two hands. The point is that they get things done. Every time an obstacle has come up, they’ve figured out a way to deal with it. Consider the following:

  • PG&E substation move? Not needed, ballpark configured to fit within purchased land.
  • Fire training station move? Garage requirement eliminated, no longer necessary.
  • Sharks objections? Lifted once entitlements were made for garage/commercial development on north side of HP Pavilion.
  • AT&T land stalemate? Possibly resolved when city provided entitlements to AT&T for land near Santana Row.
  • Worries about parking related EIR impacts? Not if “enough” parking is found on the other side of Guadalupe Parkway. (*shakes head*)

We’re in for an interesting rest of the year. In the morning I’ll check on what ORA and City Hall did with the $100 million.

One more thing: Billy Beane obliterates Lowell Cohn in this interview.

06.12.11
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MLB serious about one-team realignment

Last month I tossed off this article about realignment and interleague play mostly as a short thought experiment. Now, according to Buster Olney, Selig and MLB are taking the prospect of a one-team realignment seriously. The change, which could arrive as early as next year with the next CBA, would send Houston to the AL West. That would create two 15-team leagues with 5-team divisions throughout. It would also cause interleague play throughout the year. (I mocked up a schedule of such games throughout the season.) On Baseball Tonight, Olney characterized the probability at less than 50/50 at this point, but it could develop momentum as talks progress throughout the summer.

Simple change has Houston moving to AL West

Key to the realignment plan is Olney’s assertion that the players are very supportive. Unlike the tension-filled CBA stalemates for the NFL and NBA, there is a prevailing notion that a CBA for baseball could be approved by the end of the season. Houston is the frontrunning realignment candidate, though Florida has also been discussed. Olney also brought the possibility that approval of Jim Crane’s ownership bid may be dependent on his accepting realignment. Houston Chronicle baseball writer Richard Justice is onboard with the switch.

The intriguing wrinkle to the talks is a newly floated idea that divisions should be eliminated, leaving only two 15-team leagues. Like the divisional arrangement, the playoffs would be expanded to 10 teams (5 per league), with each league constituting a “single table” format much like the one used for Premier League soccer. The 4th and 5th place teams would have some kind of elimination game or series to start the playoffs, with the winner facing the top seed next.

How the teams would finish in 15-team, no-division leagues if the season ended today.

This kind of change is being championed by teams in the AL East, thanks to the difficulty of unseating the big money Yankees and Red Sox at the top of the division. Realignment along these lines could increase the chances of third Eastern team making the playoffs. What it really does is reduce the chances of any team with less than 90 wins going to the postseason, which personally is fine with me.

Anyone yearning for a return to the balanced schedule will get it with the elimination of divisions. As shown in the table below (C), each team would play everyone else in the league 10 or 11 times. No, that’s not the magic number of 12 that makes it possible for teams to visit every city twice a year, but for the 10 opponents with 11 matchups, two trips would still be possible. For the remaining four 10-matchup opponents, scheduling would require a mix of 6 home/4 road games.

* - 10 opponents with 11 games (3-3-3-2), 4 opponents with 10 games (3-4-3)

Also on Baseball Tonight, Tim Kurkjian suggested that because of the level of detail that would have to be worked out, there’s little chance any kind of realignment could happen in time for next season. That doesn’t make much sense to me. MLB receives drafts of schedules well in advance so that they can smooth over any issues. The process is automated, for the most part. It shouldn’t take a year of analysis to determine want the impacts are for each team from a revenue/cost standpoint. It could easily be completed by the end of the season. Of course, we’re talking about MLB and Bud Selig here, and if there’s anything we can count on, it’s Selig’s “deliberative” process.

06.10.11
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Gammons and Rosenthal weigh in on Beane, Oakland

Peter Gammons held court on KNBR’s morning show (MP3), talking about Billy Beane, the two managers named Bob, and the team’s economic predicament. Gammons has never been one to be particularly critical of Beane, so as expected he blamed Beane’s lack of success over the last five years on the A’s status as a low revenue, have-not franchise. When Brian Murphy challenged this by giving the Giants’ (and anti-Wolff/Fisher) narrative that the ownership should spend more because it is the 4th richest in baseball, Gammons replied:

Because nobody goes to the ballpark, there are no TV and radio rights. They’re not gonna lose their shirts. The Oakland A’s either have to move or be (contracted)… They can’t exist in a dump. There’s no chance of succeeding there. When Peter Magowan built PacBell he changed the market forever. Now, it was always a great baseball market. The Giants were always a really good franchise, but when they had those cold nights at Candlestick it wasn’t always a lot of fun. But they changed everything. I still think the Giants are one of the top five teams in the business.

San Francisco is a huge market. Oakland is not. The ballpark is in shambles and it’s in a bad neighborhood. People aren’t gonna go there. There’s no reason for wealthy people to give enough money so that they finish .500 and still lose money.

On this site we’ve occasionally discussed how AT&T Park has adversely affected the A’s. What surprises me is how Gammons so succinctly nailed that point when much of the local media have generally turned a blind eye to it. It’s not about hardcore fans. It’s casual fans. Regardless of how many seats are tarped over and what discounts are available, casual fans don’t come out to A’s games – at least not en masse. And when the A’s suck, there’s little hope for casual fans to show up. They know there’s a scene at China Basin and a buzz around the Giants.

Ken Rosenthal wrote a different take on Beane, wondering how long Beane will want to put up with his annual Sisyphean task. Unlike Gammons, Rosenthal doesn’t hold Beane above reproach. But he does point out the problem all low revenue teams have that we’ve gone over repeatedly:

All GMs swing and miss; it’s the nature of the beast (and not all of those deals appeared to be misses initially). The problem in Oakland — and Tampa Bay and other low-revenue markets, for that matter — is that big misses are almost catastrophic. Low-revenue clubs, unlike their big-money brethren, can’t spend their way out of mistakes.

It makes me wonder if the best way for the A’s to compete is to tank a few seasons to get high draft picks, as the Rays did unintentionally. Frankly, it’s depressing to think about. Rosenthal doesn’t offer any solutions, doesn’t mention San Jose once. I know this much. If the A’s don’t go on a big run towards the end of the season it’s gonna take the shine off Moneyball the movie. At least for me.

Updated 12:12 PM – Gammons also calls Wrigley Field “a dump” and similarly puts Tom Ricketts in a tough spot since he’ll have to go out of pocket to fund Fenway-style renovations to Wrigley.

06.08.11
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News for 6/8/11

Several weeks ago buzz surrounded SB 286, a redevelopment reform bill working its way through the state legislature. That bill has stalled in committee and has been replaced by AB 1250, written by Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Salinas). AB 1250 is working its way through committee, and the reasons why may be related to what it restricts and supports. Namely, the restrictions on redevelopment of military bases and new stadium projects are not in AB 1250, which leads me to believe that the big developer lobby had a hand in ensuring that those big ticket projects remained untouched. Language for projects involving casinos, golf courses, and race tracks is the same. The bill may face further amendments and is up against the session deadline, with Governor Brown still committed to abolishing redevelopment instead of reforming it.

The cost of the 49ers stadium has risen from $937 million to $987 million, with precious few indicators of how the team would pay for it.

The College World Series will kick off June 18 at its new home, TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha. The ballpark has already had numerous dry runs thanks to it being the home of Creighton baseball, though the constant crowds will prove to be a new kind of test. Dismantling of Rosenblatt Stadium has already begun.

Cal has managed to use up two of its nine baseball lives this year, first by raising enough money to keep the program going and then by mounting a furious comeback over Baylor on Monday to win the Houston Regional. Cal’s Evans Diamond is not considered an adequate facility for the NCAA to host a Super Regional, so it was decided on Tueday that the Bears’ series with Dallas Baptist will be played at the newest baseball stadium in the Bay Area, SCU’s Stephen Schott Stadium. (Yes, that Steve Schott.) Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students/seniors. The schedule is as follows:

Date                          Time (PT)     Television
Saturday, June 11   Game 1    5 p.m.        ESPNU
Sunday, June 12     Game 2    7 p.m.        ESPNU
Monday, June 13     Game 3*   1 or 4 p.m.   ESPN2 or ESPNU
*if necessary

The San Jose Earthquakes, who play their home games on campus at Buck Shaw Stadium, are on the road this weekend in The District, so there should be no parking constraints. I think I’ll go to one of the games, not sure which one yet. Not to be forgotten, Stanford is also in the Super Regionals, but they are on the road at North Carolina. The 1,500-seat Stephen Schott Stadium, which opened in 2005, was shoehorned into a small lot across from the university. Apartments sit behind the right field wall, lending an additional air of intimacy. There’s no room for a berm or additional seats down the lines. The Caltrain station is two blocks away, though unfortunately, no Capitol Corridor trains from the East Bay stop at this station.

ESPN Page 2 writer Paul Lukas (Uni Watch) wrote a cool feature on closed captioning at ballparks, which hopefully will become more commonplace at stadiums all over the country over time.

NBC won bidding for the the next four Olympic Games through 2020 at a combined cost of $4.4 billion. NBC’s bid purportedly eclipsed those by rivals ESPN and FOX by at least $1 billion.

Richard Keit will replace Harry Mavrogenes as head of San Jose Redevelopment, whose staff was reduced to seven.

OT: Apple wants to land a spaceship/office building on the former HP Cupertino campus it bought for expansion. Steve Jobs visited Cupertino’s City Council session last night (YouTube) to present his vision.

Jobs may want to get working on the tube technology needed to move employees between the new campus and the old one. Plans are to break ground as soon as next year and move in by 2015. Amazing how businesses without antitrust exemptions tend to get things done faster. There’s an interesting exchange towards the end of his discussion with the City Council about why there’s no Apple Store in the moribund Vallco Mall.

Former Oakland City Manager and Nationals Park dealmaker Robert Bobb stepped down from his post as emergency manager for the Detroit Public Schools. Turns out he wasn’t only fighting corruption and financial mismanagement within the rundown school system. He was also battling cancer for more than a year. For now, Bobb has returned to DC, where he will run his consulting firm and write a book about his experiences at DPS.

06.07.11
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The Cost of Indecision

It’s been a while since I have posted here. Not that ML needs any help, but I felt like it was time I stepped up and earned the fact that my name gets to appear with his on the side bar.

This desire to contribute didn’t come out of the blue. It actually took root in a recent meeting that I arranged, at my workplace and over lunch, with ML and one Doug Boxer. Many of you know that Doug is the driving force behind Let’s Go Oakland, a group of people who are passionate and committed to keeping the A’s in Oaktown.

While we didn’t really talk about anything that anyone that reads this site with regularity doesn’t already know, I was impressed with Boxer and his straight forward style in discussing both the advantages of Oakland as well as the challenges it faces. I wish many of the Pro Oakland folks that I know were equally as honest about the challenges that face the Town in their pursuit of having a stadium built. Challenges, that while real, are not impossible to overcome if accepted and addressed. Especially when you have smart people working on a realistic solution. In short, if there is a solution in Oakland, Boxer will be part of sorting it out… Even if he doesn’t have all the answers about funding the joint right now, something I think he would freely acknowledge.

After having this more than an hour discussion, I can say a few things with absolute certitude. The City of Oakland has had an opportunity to put forward it’s best ideas. The ideas they have chosen as the best have been listened to. The people of Oakland are fortunate to have a guy like Doug Boxer in their corner. If he can’t help find a way to make it work in Oakland, I am confident saying that no one can, or will.

One of the topics of discussion, something I hoped to glean but didn’t, was what the heck this two year delay has been all about. ML, Doug and I all had our own thoughts, though none of us really know for certain. The reality is that it doesn’t matter, Bud Selig’s lack of foresight has already been extremely costly to our favorite franchise and should offend the sensibilities of all of us A’s fans in the Bay Area. After all, we live in a region with a long history of successful companies that grow from flashes of imagination to household names in the time it has taken for Bud’s panel to do absolutely nothing but “study” an already pretty clear situation.

From Pandora to Facebook, companies in the Bay Area prove all the time that chasing a perfect solution to any problem is a waste of time and detrimental to getting something done. So is sitting on one’s own hands and waiting for a solution to appear. It seems that one of these two scenarios is playing out before our very eyes. Either Bud is waiting for Oakland, or San Jose, to give up so he doesn’t have to force the issue, or he is expecting years of research to come up with a magic bullet to slay the Beast of Where an A’s Stadium Should Reside. Both are foolish.

A brief interlude… As you can probably already tell, I am kind of cranky. That isn’t really anything new for us A’s fans. Really, it’s like we are all building blocks in the 9th Wonder of the World: The Frustrated Pyramid of Oakland. Think about it for a minute, we are the bottom few rows of humongous sandy blocks. We make up the first few layers of frustration as we sit helplessly watching the players flail away. Those same players make up the next few rows of the great pyramid. As they struggle to figure out how a promising season devolved in one week’s time. Decimated pitching staff? check! Underperforming veterans? Check! But most importantly, clearly incapable of carrying out the most important parts of his duties manager? Double check!

I’d throw Bob Geren in as the next level of frustration, but I am not sure how long he is going to be around. Color me skeptical, but when was the last time an owner went on record in support of his Manager only to change his mind not so long after? Maybe, if Bob Geren gets crushed between the pressure of Billy Beane’s frustration at not being able to get a premier bat to come to Oakland and all the grumpy players (players who are grumpy because Bob Geren, himself, can’t communicate or manage a bullpen) it will provide some stress relief for all of us?

And on top of Beane’s frustration we have Uncle Lew. Now, some of you who read here regularly are going to have real trouble trying to sympathize with Lew Wolff, but just imagine the conspiracy angle is true. Imagine Bud invited Lew to buy the A’s so that he could move the team out of Oakland. Imagine Lew playing his part perfectly… Nope no land in Oakland. Nope, $30M later, Fremont won’t work. Hey Bud, time to pull the trigger on that San Jose thing you asked me to get done… Oh, wait.

Now pretend the conspiracy isn’t real (or accept that it isn’t, depending on your view)… Imagine spending a few years reaching out to different people in Oakland, as Lew did. Imagine amassing the magic “binder” of letter’s rejecting the use of places like Howard Terminal, researching how a river of crap flowing beneath the old HomeBase site impacts potential development, and so on and so forth. Imagine having a solution and walking into Bud’s office and being told… “Hold on a minute while we redo everything you have done and let the local press savage you for the next 2 years and take no action to help you move forward either way… Oh, and please keep holding the line for now. Afterall, we are ‘working’ on it.”

Man alive that is a whole lot of frustration from top to bottom! But how about our two fair cities of consideration? Where do they fit in this Great Pyramid of Teeth Grindage? Has Bud’s indecision cost them anything?

First, an election will need to happen in San Jose should that locale be chosen. He had voter support to make it happen. Who knows what he has now? This is the cost of indecision.

Second, he had some momentum in Oakland… A grass roots group of supporters that are willing to make the case for a new stadium doesn’t exactly fall out of trees. How long does a Facebook group and clicking a link to send a form letter keep people’s attention? This is the cost of indecision.

These are just two, of many examples, of the cost of indecision. Bud didn’t capitalize on either. Instead he says “this is a complex situation” and insults our intelligence. That isn’t how you build the most successful internet radio platform. This isn’t how you build a social network with hundreds of millions of users. This isn’t how you should run Major League Baseball.

At Facebook, there are signs posted all around the place that say “Done is Better Than Perfect.” I think Bud needs to visit and catch a glimpse of how business is done these days. At Pandora, I am sure that copyright law policy and advertising sales campaigns and boosting subscription service account holders are all issues worked in unison. No, the “Dodgers and Mets have really screwed up… everything else is on hold” sort of dalliances don’t usually hold muster at companies that own the future.

Having a consensus builder at the helm isn’t exactly like having a visionary running the show. Having a man who can’t make a decision without the approval of those he “leads” is cutting into our fan base. And by our, I mean we. Me and you and all of us who should be preparing for a new yard instead of bickering about where that home should be.

Some other things that are currently cutting into the A’s fandom? Monte Poole’s monthly “Lew Wolff and John Fisher are characters from an Austin Powers film” column. By now, Poole should have been able to write off the A’s as the 30 mile moving carpet baggers or embraced Wolff for getting something done in the East Bay. Instead I have to argue with my friends, who support the same team I do, once a month about how Lew Wolff isn’t Emperor Palpatine and that, no, me pointing that out doesn’t make me an apologist. I will be really happy when I don’t have to read those columns anymore.

By now, our focus could be on how we band together to get Bob Geren the heck out of Dodge. Instead we argue, here and other places, about what Oakland could have done 15 years ago. As if that matters.

By now, some of us could have moved on to not being A’s fans if we so chose. Instead we drone on and on about what Lew Wolff’s intentions were when he bought the team. As if that has any bearing on MLB’s committee.

By now, some of us could be driving down to check out progress on the new yard every other week. Instead we fight about funding models for an imaginary stadium.

By now, we could all be looking at 3D illustrations and picking a seat for our season ticket package. Instead we are nitpicking “projections” of how many thousands of people would be sitting in the tarped off section of the O.co Coliseum.

By now, we could all be celebrating the signing of some free agent with a power bat. Instead we take sides in a debate over whether Scott Boras was telling the truth about why Adrian Beltre didn’t sign in Oakland.

By now, we could be talking about things that are relevant to the future of our favorite baseball franchise. Instead we are in a perpetual discussion over things that are irrelevant.

This is the cost of indecision. Something tells me a bad decision couldn’t be any worse.

06.03.11
by

The debt is too damn high

LA Times baseball writer Bill Shaikin reported today that as many as nine teams throughout MLB may be in violation of the league’s debt rules. Those teams are (reason for debt in parentheses):

  • LA Dodgers (McCourt divorce)
  • NY Mets (new stadium, Madoff scandal)
  • Chicago Cubs (recent sale)
  • Texas (recent sale, high assumed debt)
  • Washington (new stadium highly leveraged team purchase)
  • Florida (new stadium)
  • Detroit (extremely high payroll compared to revenue)
  • Baltimore (new regional sports network startup costs)

If the A’s build a ballpark somewhere they’ll join these teams. The A’s current debt load is reasonably low according to Forbes’ figures. It will surely rise when it comes time to finance a venue, though I would expect additional partners to be brought in to help soften the blow. At the end of last season I wrote about what the debt rule’s effects on the A’s are now and into the future. Then the post was about payroll. Now it’s about debt service on a new ballpark.

30-year financing of a $450 million ballpark at 6% will cost $27 million per year. For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume there are some cost overruns assumed by the A’s, plus additional soft costs and insurance, bringing debt service to a round $30 million per year. That’s 25x the lease payment they’re making this season, so the revenue streams they’re getting from a new ballpark better be worth it. Lew Wolff has maintained for some time that seat licenses aren’t part of the equation, so no upfront payments are included.

At the same time, it’s no fun having a new ballpark if all you’re going to do is pay a mortgage. Stadium revenue needs to be well above and beyond the debt service amount to make it worthwhile. The Giants and Cardinals have proved it’s possible to make it work, but the amount the A’s will have to shoulder will be unprecedented for a team that’s not in one of the big three markets. To understand the team’s challenge, I’ve broken down how the $30 million can be addressed using multiple revenue sources.

The table above assumes attendance 30,000+ per game, with a complete sellout of premium seating options. In-stadium sponsorships also play a big role, one-third of the debt. Having improved amenities such as rental facilities, a large video board, and ribbon boards will make a huge difference. That makes revenue from every attendee above the 30,000 mark pure gravy. The Giants have operated in this manner since their ballpark opened.

Pretty pie chart

It all seems hunky dory when the fans are filling the place. What happens when they don’t? Let’s look at a scenario in which the A’s only pull in 22,500 per game, or 1.8 million per season.

Lower demand of 25% all around affects all sales, regular and premium. It also puts the team at risk of coming up short, which may force them to cut costs such as payroll.

A drop of $5 million per year is nothing compared to what the Mets and Dodgers are experiencing. However it has broad effects for the A’s because it limits their flexibility. Less money is available upfront for payroll, and they may have to pull from non-stadium sources (TV/Radio) to make ends meet. At the end of the season, they may even find themselves back on revenue sharing welfare (ex.: Pittsburgh). They’ll still have the benefit of the stadium expenses writeoff to help ease the pain, but it’s not a situation anyone wants to be in long term.

Bud Selig and the owners have to be keenly aware of the risk, which may be a legitimate reason why they’re moving so slothlike regarding the A’s. For Oakland, where corporate support isn’t the strongest and attendance has historically been weak, they’ll be looking to keep the A’s from being a bad leverage case like the Dodgers. For San Jose, the question of territorial rights may effectively push the true cost of the ballpark up, though it’s not known how much. Neither is an easy issue to address. Most previous ballparks had huge public financing components to take care of debt service with only a nominal lease payment required of the team tenant. The Giants continue to claim that revenue the South Bay is absolutely necessary to guarantee payments at AT&T Park. Despite the large debt the A’s could accrue, the potential for an extra $30-50 million or more per year after debt service makes it worthwhile, compared to languishing at the Coliseum with no real hope for significant revenue. I’d like to see a $90 million payroll at some point, even if I have to pay more out of pocket to make it happen.